$100m fund to move on distressed office sites

Property developer and fund manager Quintessential Equity is poised to close a new $100 million-plus fund that will be focused on distressed properties.

Quintessential Equity co-founder and director Harry Rosenberg said it is the first fund the group has established without a specific target.

“It is designed to make us capital-ready to take advantage of opportunities that arise in the next 12-to-24 months due to the actions of the big four banks,” Mr Rosenberg told the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce property lunch.

“A lot of things are changing in the industry. Yields are at historic levels and shadow lending is taking up the slack left by the big banks,” he said.

The Quintessential Equity Master Fund will target income-generating office and industrial properties around the country. Quintessential already has more than $300 million in assets under management in other funds and a $850 million development pipeline.

“We have been humbled by the overwhelming support we have received from our investors,” Mr Rosenberg told The Age.

Quintessential, established in 2010 by Shane Quinn and Mr Rosenberg, traditionally offers high-net-worth investors the chance to directly own property through syndicates created for specific properties.

The fund manager is also a developer and is currently building a new $120 million headquarters for Worksafe in Geelong at 1 Malop Street.

The Australian Tax Office’s new office requirement is on its radar, with a new 25,000 square metre 12-level tower proposed for an existing Brisbane office complex in Mount Gravatt.

It paid $45.25 million for the Garden Square office complex in Mount Gravatt in 2016.

Quintessential is an active trader of properties particularly in Canberra where it bought low several years ago but has since sold into a rising market.

Last year it sold an office building at 44 Sydney Avenue, leased to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to Charter Hall for $58.6 million – after buying it in 2015 for $32 million.

That followed an earlier Canberra deal where a building in Woden, purchased for $14 million, sold five years later for $58.4 million.